# My new wineador. TOO SMALL, with some setup issues and rookie mistakes.



## Stradawhovious (Oct 17, 2012)

Ok, so I convinced my wife to let me make a wineador. She was happy because I could get rid of the two humidors I put in the living room, and move everything to a shelf in the bedroom. 

Groovie.

Well, I went on craigslist, and the only model that would fit in the spot alloted was an emerson 12 bottle model. I got 'er home, and was a little disapopinted in the lack of space in there. Don't get me wrong, it tripled the amount of room I have, but much like running out of room in the gun safe..... which I have..... you cant efficiently hide new purchases when the don't conveniently tuck away in whatever storage container you put them in.

I'm a little concerned about a few things. First off, my humidors were not holding the RH high enough. This time of year in MN the RH indoors plummets to about 40%. My humidors.... although teh hygrometers were reading 60% were right around the 55% mark. No Bueno.

I set up the humidor and made storage racks out of old cuban Cohiba boxes I got from craigslist. I think they turned out really well. I have the lids spaced about a half inch off the bases all the way around for air flow, and each box can hold about 35 sticks. Good start.

I put these boxes (it will fit 5) and a digital hygrometer/thermometer in the wineador and brought the humidity up to 70% and the temp to about 66 degrees. Again, good start. 

Then I discovered a problem. My humidors were starting to worry me. So, keeping the theory "something is better than nothing" theory that seems to make sense in my rookie brain I transferred the sticks to the wineador. I said to myself, "Self, it's better to have those sticks at a higher, more suitable environment in an unseasoned wineador than it is to have them in a seasoned humidor that seems to be at a dnagerously low humidity."

That being said, I made the transfer. At first the humidity dropped quite a bit in the wineador (to be expected) I brought it back up by putting a modded CPU fan inside the unit with the pucks from the humidors. That brought everything up to a nice 68% humidity and 66 degrees. I left the fan off during the evening, and in the morning I was at 64% humidity and 68 degrees. Putting the fan back on brought it back down to the 66/66 level. 

I don't think I will do any harm to the sticks this way, and the levels seem to be evening out quite well. I do have better means of humidity control coming in the mail so hopefully I can get that CPU fan out of there pretty soon, as it's taking up valuable real estate.

I will post pics when I get the permanent furniture installed. So far so good though, I feel much more confident in the wineadors ability to keep the humidity up in teh MN winters than those cedar boxes alone.

Any advice would be welcomed and entertained seeing as I'm a dumb rookie....... but in lieu of that I'm just going to plod ahead. Steady as she goes! I'm just hoping I don't run out of room soon. The good news is that I think I can hold off on any more purchases until I refine my tastes a little. The bad news is that I have about 35 more sticks coming in the next week. 

Well, I guess that's not bad news per se...... :lol:


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## Fuzzy (Jun 19, 2011)

If you can get the wineador to stabilize at any RH between 60% and below 70% you are good!

An axiom here at Puff is "Go Bigger"


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## Stradawhovious (Oct 17, 2012)

Fuzzy said:


> An axiom here at Puff is "Go Bigger"


You don't need to convince me......... My wife on the OTOH.......

She's a little miffed that I'm smoking cigars to begin with. I quit smoking cigarettes 2 years ago, and she thinks cigars are a "gateway" drug back to the coffin nails. Talking her into the wineador was a pretty big step to begin with.. Unfortunately I will have to start small.


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## Gdaddy (Sep 20, 2012)

How many cigars do you have in there now?

Do you ever inhale when you smoke cigars?


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## zephead61 (Apr 18, 2012)

You will find that on this forum, 65% RH is the preferred level of humidity. So, you are good to go Bro!


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## Stradawhovious (Oct 17, 2012)

Gdaddy said:


> How many cigars do you have in there now?
> 
> Do you ever inhale when you smoke cigars?


I have about 75 cigars in the Winedor right now, give or take a few. Do I ever inhale? Nope. Only the incidental inhaling of ambient smoke. I just fill my mouth, let it roll around and push it out.



zephead61 said:


> You will find that on this forum, 65% RH is the preferred level of humidity. So, you are good to go Bro!


That's what i've been seeing, and is my end goal. A plesant, rock solid 65/65


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## Gdaddy (Sep 20, 2012)

You can probably triple that amount in that size wine cooler.

You can add inexpensive Spanish cedar shelves here...

Accessories - Custom Wineador™ Creations


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## Stradawhovious (Oct 17, 2012)

Gdaddy said:


> You can probably triple that amount in that size wine cooler.
> 
> You can add inexpensive Spanish cedar shelves here...
> 
> Link removed by Strad


With the setup i have right now, I calculated about 180 will fit in there. I could fit more if I ordered/made custom shelves and whatsuch, but to be honest, if I get the point......... scratch that..... when I get to the point where I max this one out, I will likely just build a coolidor in the basement for Longer term/overflow storage. Right now I'm going to try to focus more on what I should be buying rather than just acquiring. Time to get smoking!

Too bad it's getting too cold to smoke outdoors here, and the law says we cant smoke indoors in stores/restaraunts. Time to run some insulation in my buddy's garage!


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## Jfred (Jun 7, 2012)

Pictures ASAP! lol Im currently waiting on a wine cooler and cant wait to get it.


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## Stradawhovious (Oct 17, 2012)

Jfred said:


> Pictures ASAP! lol Im currently waiting on a wine cooler and cant wait to get it.


It's not quite finished yet..... And I'm sure it's laughable to some folks here...........

But here is a crappy Cell phone pic anyways. Better pictures to come when it is finished.

I'm not sure if I'm going to keep the current shelf setup or not. It weems if I were to make the shelves so they fit snugly in the unit I could hold more sticks, but then I would have to sacrifice space at the bottom for humidity control devices. Might just be a horse a piece. We will see.


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## Jfred (Jun 7, 2012)

Dont be afraid of people here making fun of you(unless you do something completely dumb lol) Everyone here is very polite. that wineador looks pretty good! You will just need cleaner shelving once you run out of room.


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## Gdaddy (Sep 20, 2012)

Glad to see you made the leap into 'Winedor land'.

With properly fit shelves you would gain a lot more space.

Why did you fit a fan when there's one built in the back of the unit?


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## Jfred (Jun 7, 2012)

I think on some units the fan only runs when the cooler is running and sometimes the units dont run often if they are in a cool room.


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## Stradawhovious (Oct 17, 2012)

Gdaddy said:


> Glad to see you made the leap into 'Winedor land'.
> 
> With properly fit shelves you would gain a lot more space.
> 
> Why did you fit a fan when there's one built in the back of the unit?


Yeah... so am I 

I'm thinking about the shelves, but right now I think the Cuban boxes are a nice touch. If/when I need more room, I will certainly look into the shelves.... I will likely build them myself. I have a whole basement full of tools I rarely use.

The fan was not fit into the unit, it was just set in there to help build the humidity. Once the cooler was holding humidity in the mid 60s I took it out. What you're seeing is a puck that will be replaced with beads when the get here.


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## Jfred (Jun 7, 2012)

Are cigar boxes made out of Spanish cedar?


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## Stradawhovious (Oct 17, 2012)

Jfred said:


> Are cigar boxes made out of Spanish cedar?


These are plywood, but the insides of them are lined with spanish cedar.


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## choinga (Aug 11, 2010)

that box setup, while cool, is one of the main reasons you are out of space. I guarantee you could double what you have in there now if you had a proper drawer setup.


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## Stradawhovious (Oct 17, 2012)

choinga said:


> that box setup, while cool, is one of the main reasons you are out of space. I guarantee you could double what you have in there now if you had a proper drawer setup.


You're right, of course.... My only setback is that I'm already invested in the cuban cigar boxes, they look really cool (what with the "Made in Cuba labels and all) and I haven't filled them yet. The top one is still empty.

I already have plans to build drawers, and by the time I get them done, I'm sure I will need them.


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## choinga (Aug 11, 2010)

...if you are making your own shelves you might think about doing the false bottom like Forrest does. I have various pictures of my setup here and you can browse through to get some ideas.

Another reason why it's good to have bigger drawers/shelves is that you can experiment with the placement of your humidification material. I use HCL beads and a bag of HF 60% beads at the bottom that I charge only once about every 4-5 months, if that. I have mostly CC's so I keep my unit at around 60% RH and love the HCL beads for their zero maintenance. I have several small bags and can tuck them in drawers or shove them behind shelves and have been able to maintain RH and temp within 1 degree/% throughout the cabinet.

Anyway, as someone already mentioned - the mantra here is 'go big'. I wish I already had more space. Fortunately, I'm building a wine cellar in my house that will be temp/RH controlled and I'm going to use some shelf space in there to store some boxes.

Have fun!


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## Stradawhovious (Oct 17, 2012)

Update time. Thanks for the advice folks! It's much appreciated!

Well, I have done the following to my Wineador......

Removed all the cigar boxes and replaced them with drawers, Lined the bottom with spanish cedar slabs, replaced the Gel crystals with kitty litter, calibrated my hygrometer to find that it reads 4% low, wired a computer fan through the drain hole and powered it with a generic power adapter... and filled the drain plug with hotglue.

Result? Tripled the capacity, and now have a rock solid 65% humidity with very nice air flow.

Just in time to outgrow it with teh order that's coming in this week! :lol:

Thanks again folks, this place is a wealth of information.


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## stonecutter2 (Jul 12, 2012)

Stradawhovious said:


> Update time. Thanks for the advice folks! It's much appreciated!
> 
> Well, I have done the following to my Wineador......
> 
> ...


Beautiful!! Well done


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## Jfred (Jun 7, 2012)

What kind of order do you have coming? lol As soon as i got my wineador i thought it would be a good reason to start buying boxes and now mine is getting full pretty fast lol.


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## Stradawhovious (Oct 17, 2012)

Jfred said:


> What kind of order do you have coming? lol As soon as i got my wineador i thought it would be a good reason to start buying boxes and now mine is getting full pretty fast lol.


10 Genesis project torpedos
10 Vegas 5 "Friggin A"
Boxed 3 pack Camacho 1962 Pre-Embargo
10 Diesel Unlimited d.6
6 Gurkha Centurian Double Perfecto
10 Obsidian Double Perfecto
Boxed Nub Sampler
Box of this, 
Box of that
etc.
etc.
etc.

Damn free fall. :c

It kind of never ends......... But now that the credit cards have been maxed out, The house has been mortgaged to the hilt, the cars have been leined, all of my posessions have been sold for cash and the kids' college funds have been raided, I think I have finally spent every penny I have/had, and can now stop buying and start enjoying. :lol:


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## Jfred (Jun 7, 2012)

Haha i still havent tried cigar bid out yet. I already spend enough at my B&M. Prices are a tad higher but i dont mind spending a little more to support them.


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## Stradawhovious (Oct 17, 2012)

Jfred said:


> Haha i still havent tried cigar bid out yet.


Careful..... Freefall is like Crack.


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